God expected Israel to aggressively oppose all forms of idolatry. In this chapter, He commanded His people to "destroy their altars, break their sacred pillars, and burn their wooden images with fire" (verse 3). Allowing the vestiges of paganism to continue in the land would be too much of a temptation as well as a blatant disregard for the purity and holiness of God who delivered the first commandment to Moses as: "You shall have no other gods before Me," and the second like it: "You shall not make for yourself an idol" (Exodus 20:3-4). Thus, Israel was to prosecute cites of idolatry with vigor.